Walmart and Health Care

Whiny capitalist pig asshole, H. Lee Scott Jr., CEO of Walmart, appeared before the National Governor's Conference this last weekend, and pleaded with the governors present not to pass legislation that would "burden" the piratical retail giant.

Burden the richest retailer in the world? Burden a company that prides itself on keeping wages down in every retail outlet it owns? Burden a company that works day and night to import shoddy goods from China while at the same time actively pursuing a policy of obliterating -- erasing -- the small town American main street?

More than 20 states just in the last year have introduced legislation that takes aim directly at the health care crisis among Walmart employees, even though most of it doesn't specifically name the corporation.

In my own Washington State, fully 20% of Walmart employees are also on the public Basic Health rolls.

Scott's response to this sad statistic? "Have many states made Medicaid programs far more generous in order to cover the kids of working families? Yes, they have," he said, in a pathetic echo of the annoying rhetorical device of Donald "Am-I-an-idiot-yes-I-am" Rumsfeld.

Generous? Covering the basic health needs of a state's citizens is probably seen as "generous" for high-rolling billion-dollar-corporation-running pricks like Scott, but maybe just once he ought to try living down here with the rest of us for a little time. I'd like to see Scott and the other nose-in-the-air head-in-the-clouds stick-up-the-ass corporatists sentenced to live for a year on the $20,000 average salary he pays his employees.

Then we'll see if he's still whining about the "generosity" of states who choose to fill in where he refuses to.

"Intelligent Design" on the Decline?

When even a hyper-religious super-conservative state like the Mormon theocracy of Utah can't pass a bill discounting Darwin, isn't it really just about time for the anti-evolutionists to roll up their tents and fade away into the desert?

Despite some spirited debate in the Utah legislature, the measure just couldn't get traction: "There are a number of influential legislators who believe you evolved from an ape," Senator Chris Buttars (R-South Park) said following the vote. "I didn't."

Okay, Buttars, never mind the fact that neither Darwin's theory nor anyone else except the woefully uninformed and the intentionally stupid ever claimed that man descended from an ape or a monkey or anything of the sort. What the Theory of Evolution states -- in a very small part of the elegant whole -- is that both man and ape descended from a common ancestor. Everyone knows this, and to say that it says otherwise is both dishonest and disingenuous.

The anti-evolutionist bible-bangers can puff and posture all they want, but they can't explain away one simple and incontrovertible fact: Humans and chimpanzees share upwards of 98% of their DNA. Why would this happen if they didn't evolve -- and recently, in evolutionary terms -- from a common ancestor?

And when will the knuckledraggers finally get it through their thick simian-like skulls that there is nothing incompatible between evolution and religion. If you believe that way, then you can see that religion tells what god did, and evolution describes how he did it. Even a non-believer like me can grasp the fundamental concept behind that.

But then who am I to give lessons in theology. I really don't give a rat's ass what the fundo Xians believe, just so long as they obey Christ's dictum that they go into their closets and pray in secret (Matthew 6:1-8).

But there you go; that's another one of those hundreds of inconvenient Bible verses that today's self-described "Bible-believin' Christians" ignore, while at the same time the same hypocritical assholes are beating the tubs for the "literal" truth of the Bible and the stoning of homosexuals.

Give me a fucking break -- Jesus, save me from your followers.

Bad Management, Sex and Corruption

Jesus, what is it with these winger nutjobs, that everything has to come down to SEX SEX SEX SEX!!!!??????????

That's what instant expert UN hater John Bad-Facial-Hair Bolton says is wrong with the United Nations. All that. Plus sex.

WTF??? Where in the hell did that come from?

And I guess the real question is, How would HE know? With that walrus refugee moustache, he couldn't get laid in a Bangkok whorehouse with a barrel full of baht.

If he shaved it off, he wouldn't look like Wally the Walrus. Instead he'd look like Baby Huey.

Sorry, John. Looks like you aren't getting laid after all.

Weekly "Bush Twins in Uniform" Watch

It has now been 644 days since Jenna and Not-Jenna Bush, the slacker offspring of Preznit Numnutz, graduated from college and they are still not in the uniform of the US armed services.

Why? Because they have other priorities. They are too busy partying down in Georgetown to show their support for the war by enlisting their chickenhawk-child selves into the military service, that's why.

Why can't they be like their royal counterparts in the UK? The Royal Family, unlike the Bush Crime Family, has a centuries-long tradition of honorable military service. Prince Andrew was a combat helicopter pilot in La Guerre de las Malvinas (aka the Falklands War), Prince William, direct heir to the throne, has entered Sandhurst (Britain's West Point), and little brother Prince Harry graduates Sandhurst in April and could be sent to Iraq as a cavalry lieutenant.

How's that shit, Jenna and Not-Jenna? That make you a proud father, Baby Doc?

The rest you, those who think the proud military tradition of this nation needs to be upheld by those most likely to profit from it, be sure to sign the Buzzflash petition and demand that the Bush offspring enlist, or else bring the troops home. If it's not a cause noble enough for any of the children of the Bush Dynasty to join, then it's not noble enough for our sons and daughters to die for.

And check out The Yellow Elephant blog, which asks the question "It's their war; why aren't they fighting it?"

Al Qaeda to UAE: "We Infiltrated You"

In a copyrighted story in the New York Post (!), the big Murdoch tabloid in NYC, there's a report about a secret 2002 memo that's surfaced in which Al Qaeda warned the United Arab Emirates that their government has been infiltrated by Al Qaeda operatives:

"You are well aware that we have infiltrated your security, censorship and monetary agencies, along with other agencies that should not be mentioned," the message said.
"Therefore, we warn of the continuation of practicing . . . policies which do not serve your interest and will only cost you many problems that will place you in an embarrassing state before your citizens.
"Your homeland is exposed to us. There are many vital interests that will hurt you if we decided to harm them."

And this is the very government to which the traitors -- there's no other word for them -- in the Bush Crime Family want to turn over the operations of six major American ports.

Read the full story (login required -- use bugmenot.com for a viable and untraceable login and password) and see how chilling this latest turn of events has become.

Meanwhile, Baby Doc, the Empty Sleevejob, keeps on stubbornly insisting that he will veto any attempt by the people's representatives (i.e., the Reichstag Congress) to try to put the skids to this reckless money-grubbing deal.

Of course, the fact that a wealthy oil sheik from the UAE made a "goodwill contribution" of one million dollars to the Bush library has absolutely nothing to do with that decision. Purely coincidental. Nothing more to see here; move on. (Sidebar: Exactly how many copies of My Pet Goat will a cool million purchase?)

Jesus, how much more will it take before we rise up and take back our government "forcefully" -- by working to elect Democrats in sufficient numbers this fall to guarantee impeachment and removal from office of Monkeyboy, Crashcart, Kindasleazy and all the rest of the corrupt, evil and treacherous members of the BFEE who are still in high office?

Even Wm. F. Buckley??? Goodnight, Georgie

When even the chief intellectual at the top of the conservative heap comes out against you, you're pretty much toast. Say goodnight, Baby Doc, slip into your Doctor Dentons and toddle yourself off to bed. You're done.

Buckley, for all that I disagree with him on -- and that's pretty much everything -- has always held my interest for his language stylings and his intellect. In a column in his National Review, Buckley comes flat out and says of our Iraq non-policy, "it didn't work", and calls for an "acknowledgment of defeat".

Way to go, Bill!

Still, given Buckley's credentials as a true conservative, you have to wonder what else about the evil and corrupt neocon BFEE he holds in contempt. My guess is that secretly, in his heart of hearts, most of it. As I've said before, there is nothing truly conservative about the corrupt and opportunistic Mayberry Machiavellis who have clawed their way to power over the shreds of our constitution and our civil rights, not to mention the bodies of 2288 dead American service members.

Breaking News! Ann "Thrax" Coulter NAKED!!!

The Democratic Daily has exclusive photos of Ann "Thrax" Coulter running amok while naked at a Republican Party fundraiser, and they are HOT!

Check them out and try not to drool all over yourself when you see them.

And speaking of Thrax, you can also catch her in Fear it in the Night, a parody of Springsteen's Spirit in the Night, over at The Radical Veteran website.

Heard it on the Daily Show

Cheney: A heartbeat away, either from the presidency or a manslaughter charge.

Friday Cat Blogging

"Humanizing" Homosexuals? That's Crazy Talk!

I don't listen to Bill "Falafel" O'Reilly, so I have to rely on Stephanie Miller for my periodic dose of Billshit.

Today she played a clip that was classic Bill -- and not only that, but classic wingnut as well:

"The problem with movies like Brokeback Mountain is that they humanize homosexuals, okay?" Bill said, without a trace of irony OR a German accent.

"Humanize" homosexuals?

Well, we can't have that crap. Humanizing homos? Where will it end? Next thing you know they'll want their freedom. They'll want to drink out of the same drinking fountains. They won't ride at the back of the bus. They'll want to vote and own property. They'll want -- gasp -- equal rights! And when they start marrying each other, all of our "real" marriages will be in dire jeopardy!

It'll be nothing short of the end of civilization as we know it!

It's a damn good thing The Billshitter is there for us, protecting god's empire here on earth by stiffening up the bone in the moral spine of our nation. Yep, the White Knight of Christian Morality is right there on top of things. On top of things like the intended recipient of his legend-in-his-own-mind sexual prowess as the spittle-dribbling leg-humping Human Loofah. On top of, that is, his former producer/turncoat lawsuit-filing Andrea Mackris...

Maybe someone ought to be talking about humanizing Bill O'Reilly. But that's a lost cause.

Now Tom Delay is Saying "Hey, I Hardly Know the Guy"

When it starts to fall apart, it goes fast. Even Tom Delay is distancing himself from Baby Doc over the sale of the six major US ports to Al Qaeda the Dubai Darlings of the BFEE.

Bush is "making a big mistake" on the sale, Delay told the Dallas Morning News yesterday. Ouch!

Read the full story and then tell me that you think Baby Doc is NOT in trouble.

Veto? Baby Doc Remains Clueless, Lenin Sells Rope

Baby Doc has never, not once, vetoed a piece of legislation that has come before him. So why is he threatening it now, when he is expecting to face a very tough bi-partisan bill that would block an Arab company from the terrorist-financing Al Qaeda-banker Emirates from buying up port operations at six major US ports? And why did he dress up in a flight jacket (aside from the fact that little Georgie loves to play dressup) to "sharply" deliver his veto threat to the media aboard Air Force One? And why is he so adamant about supporting something that he now claims he didn't have any involvement in, in fact, didn't even know about until after it was a done deal?

Like so much else with this Maladministration, something isn't adding up here. After five post 9-11 years of beating the panic drum and whipping the masses into a frenzy of fear, now they are completely downplaying the security issues?

With both the ethically-challenged Bill "Kitty-Kervorkian" Frist in the Senate and fatboy Denny "Make-That-Three-Triple-Cheesburgers" Hastert in the House behind the legislation, the stage is set for a major confrontation between the White House and its normally complaisant lackeys in Congress. Are we seeing, finally, the unraveling of that unholy alliance on the right? Are people even in his own party finally starting to see the corruption, the weakness, and the greed of the Bush Crime Family and the bent-kneed obeisance that Baby Doc pays to the Saudi Royal Family?

Maybe. Except for John McCain: "The president's leadership has earned our trust [???!!!] in the war on terror, and surely his administration deserves the presumption that they would not sell our security short," McCain said, in a statement that sells short his own soul and yet still will not get him one millimeter closer to the nod for that desperately-desired but eternally-out-of-reach GOP presidential nomination.

And lost in all of this is the larger issue, beyond even the sacrifice of security, the handing over of the safety of our ports to the same banking conglomerate that financed the 9-11 hijackers: America is up for sale. And most of it is gone now, sold off lock, stock and barrel to the wealthy oil barons in the Middle East and the neo-capitalists in what used to be known as "Red" China.

"When the time comes to start hanging capitalists, the capitalists themselves will sell us the rope."

-- V.I. Lenin, accurately predicting the
End Times for the Capitalist System

Nope, Nothing Suspicious Here

Baby Doc, in his newfound oil-addict-in-recovery persona, has suddenly discovered that alternative fuels are "sexy". So he's been trotting his retarded little self around the country, trying to talk the big talk about reducing dependence on foreign oil, spending research dollars on newkuler energy, yada yada yada.

But, like everything else with the Gang That Couldn't Think Straight, his photo-op team fucked up -- royally -- when they booked The Empty Sleevejob into the National Renewable Energy Lab in Golden, Colorado. (BTW and not coincidentally, this is also home to the capitalist-pig union-busting race-baiting rightwing-Repugnican-supporting bad-beer-brewing Coors Brewery.)

But apparently someone didn't do his homework: It was discovered that the US Department of Energy just this month -- and after the State of Disunion speech -- cut so much from the lab's funding that they had to lay off workers.

Whoops. That doesn't really send the right message, does it? More than a bit embarrassing for an administration that is going around mouthing empty platitudes about researching alternative fuels. Jeez, what to do?

The only thing possible was cough up the money and restore the jobs. Now Baby Doc's speech touting alternative and renewable energy won't look so much like the meaningless talking-suit gesture that it really is. And of course now the prevaricating little fucker is saying that the budget was originally cut due to a "mix-up", we didn't mean it, no not you, blah blah blah.

Yeah, just like those other mix-ups that cut VA health care funding, Pell Grants, food stamps, Medicaid, etc etc etc. In fact, everything except the funding for the defense contractors like Halliburton, et al. was cut due to those same pesky and inconvenient mix-ups.

Another SCOTUS Surprise

Jeez, nobody saw this coming, either. It turns out that the very first case out of the chute for Scalito will be ...[drumroll] ... an abortion case. Watch the excitement and follow the fun as Stripsearch Sammy joins his flinty-hearted pointy-headed misogynist fellow justices to issue a ruling that will be the first in a long line of decisions that will chip away at a woman's right to choose.

I don't know anything about the case, I've only seen the headlines on Google News, and yet I am confident in my prediction that he will join Roberts, Scalia and Thomas in their ruling on the case, with Kennedy an extremely likely fifth, for a majority 5-4 decision.

Anybody wanna bet some cash that it won't happen? Yeah, I thought not. As I've said before, stare decisis my ass.

And all of those Vichy Democrats who backed down from the filibuster? You already know what I think of them, but it wouldn't hurt to let them know once again, after this comes down, that they are the ones who are responsible for it.

The Memory Hole

Steady readers of this blog know that I am a big fan of George Orwell and his great dystopian novel, 1984 (for example, see here, here and here), and being such a fan I am naturally aghast at how much that Orwell predicted over half a century ago has come true -- and is continuing to come true on an almost daily basis.

Those who have read 1984 -- and you all should have by now; if not, buy a copy and read it before it disappears! -- will recall that Winston Smith worked for the Ministry of Information, in a job that required him to rewrite history almost constantly, according to the whim of the Inner Party.

When a historical "fact" changed, Winston would remove it from all of the records and drop it down something called -- in a true Orwellian naming convention -- the "Memory Hole".

And that my friends is exactly what is happening at our own National Archives.

Read the chilling story in the New York Times how the minions of the BFEE are reclassifying documents, some of which have been in the public domain for YEARS. Many of which have been published and are available in bound books issued by the US Government!

None of that matters. This review and reclassification is going on in secret, without any kind of review.

Excerpt from the Times story:

Under existing guidelines, government documents are supposed to be declassified after 25 years unless there is particular reason to keep them secret. While some of the choices made by the security reviewers at the archives are baffling, others seem guided by an old bureaucratic reflex: to cover up embarrassments, even if they occurred a half-century ago.
One reclassified document in Mr. Aid's files, for instance, gives the C.I.A.'s assessment on Oct. 12, 1950, that Chinese intervention in the Korean War was "not probable in 1950." Just two weeks later, on Oct. 27, some 300,000 Chinese troops crossed into Korea.

Read the whole story and once again prepare yourself for the frustration, the anger that will ensue.

We HAVE to stop these people! Work hard to elect a Democratic Congress this year!

Vichy Democrats

I hadn't heard the term until I read Digby's post the other day, Democrat Libre, but it sure resonates with those of us old enough to remember WWII (okay, I don't really remember it, since I was born at the tail end of it), or at least old enough to remember when they still taught "secular" history in the schools.

For the rest of you, Vichy was the seat of government for collaborationist France after the Nazis invaded. After the war, the word became a synonym, along with Quisling, for traitor.

As strongly as I believe that Democrats have to stick together, and that we should adopt the Demo version of Reagan's so-called 11th Commandment ("Thou shalt not speak ill of another Republican" -- a commandment broken of course by Baby Doc when he savaged McCain in the 2000 election primaries), still there comes a time when turncoat Democrats such as Baby-Doc-Apologist Joe Biden and Baby-Doc-Kisser Joementum Lieberman need to be dealt a little discipline. A lot of discipline. As does any Democrat who thinks he can make a deal with the Repugs, who thinks using their talking points will gain him traction, or who believes oh, maybe they aren't that bad. Wrong. They are that bad.

It just won't work to try to be bipartisan and reach out to the Repug thugs. They don't want cooperation from the Dems -- they want the total annhiliation of the whole left wing.

We've compromised enough with these assholes. This time it's total war, war without mercy.

"If he comes after you with a knife, you go after him with a gun; if he puts one of your guys in the hospital, you put of his in the morgue."

-- Sean Connery to Kevin Costner in The Untouchables

I'll let Digby finish it:

The grassroots believe that after all that, after moving to the right, after offering to compromise, after allowing our "red state Democrats" to run with the other side who then treated them with nothing but bad faith, now is the time for politicans to make a choice. Submit to them or stand with the resistence.

Has Baby Doc Gone Insane?

The answer to that is yes, according to lifelong Republican Peter Gadiel, whose son died in the 9-11 attack, when he learned that we are now not only selling our ports to the same banking conglomerate out of the United Arab Emirates who financed the 9-11 hijackers, but also outsourcing the security of those ports to the same people.

I have to agree with Gadiel. The President has gone insane. I think it happened a long time ago, but like the other children of alcoholics, we've been in complete and total denial about it. But it's about goddamn time we woke up to the facts. Baby Doc is insane.

The only way that he will be held accountable for the crimes that his insanity has driven him to is if the Democrats take back Congress this fall.

If we do not do everything we can to win this election, we might as well fold up our tents and steal away in shame.

And it will truly mark the end of the American experiment in democracy.

Weekly "Bush Twins in Uniform" Watch

It has now been 637 days since Jenna and Not-Jenna Bush, the slacker offspring of Preznit Numnutz, graduated from college and they are still not in the uniform of the US armed services.

Why? Because they have other priorities. They are too busy partying down in Georgetown to show their support for the war by enlisting their chickenhawk-child selves into the military service, that's why.

Why can't they be like their royal counterparts in the UK? The Royal Family, unlike the Bush Crime Family, has a centuries-long tradition of honorable military service. Prince Andrew was a combat helicopter pilot in La Guerre de las Malvinas (aka the Falklands War), Prince William, direct heir to the throne, has entered Sandhurst (Britain's West Point), and little brother Prince Harry graduates Sandhurst in April and could be sent to Iraq as a cavalry lieutenant.

How's that shit, Jenna and Not-Jenna? That make you a proud father, Baby Doc?

The rest you, those who think the proud military tradition of this nation needs to be upheld by those most likely to profit from it, be sure to sign the Buzzflash petition and demand that the Bush offspring enlist, or else bring the troops home. If it's not a cause noble enough for any of the children of the Bush Dynasty to join, then it's not noble enough for our sons and daughters to die for.

And check out The Yellow Elephant blog, which asks the question "It's their war; why aren't they fighting it?"

Fox News "Wins" Battle for Cheney Interview

That, believe it or not, was the headline on a WaPo article the other morning. Faux News "won" the exclusive right to the only interview Vice President Dicklimp Shoot-em-in-the-face Crashcart was going to give about the now-infamous shooting.

This is yet another in a long line of sorry examples of the SCLM pretending that anyone in the broadcast medium was eligible to receive this gracious bounty from the Overlords, and by the luck of the draw, only Fox was awarded this plum interview.

Jesus Christ! When will the whore press grow up and realize that Faux News never "won" anything -- it was really a foregone conclusion that the BFEE Maladiminstration was going to "choose" its own propaganda arm -- Faux News -- for this interview. Give me a fucking break.

Okay, okay, I know that this was just an "entertainment" piece from The Hollywood Reporter, so spare me the flame war already. The point is this: If we had a true independent media in this country willing to call a spade a spade, you never see this kind of headline. Instead they would be telling us the truth about Faux News -- it is and always was the propaganda arm of the Republican Party and gets special favors from its fascist overlords in the Ministry of Information.

Anyone who can't see that is just fucking stupid.

325,000? Why Stop There?

Reuters UK is reporting that the US government database of suspected terrorists has grown from fewer than 75,000 in 2003 so that it's now in excess of 325,000 individuals. An official from the NCTC -- speaking under conditions of anonymity, of course -- says that most of these people are "non-US persons who do not live in the US".

Most. Not all. So that means that the converse is also true, that "US persons who do live in the US" are also on this list. Makes you wonder who is on it. Like you, maybe? Like me? That shifty-looking Apu-wanna-be down at the Quickie Mart for sure -- watch him closely the next time he makes you a Slurpee. Chances are he's going to poison you sooner rather than later.

Jesus, how many people can we possibly put on this list? At 325,000 it's already out of control; why not add another million or so, just to make it interesting. It won't make it any harder to maintain and work -- it's already impossible.

How about adding every Muslim on the face of the planet? Easy. Then we can go to work on the Basque Separatists, the Sendero Luminoso, the Girl Scouts and finally wrap it all up with the Bokononists. But those Bokononists are an untrustworthy lot -- chances are they're already on that list.

The "Banker of Terrorism"?

That's what Kindasleazy Rice called Iran the other day.

WTF? I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but even I have been paying attention long enough to know that it was actually the bankers in the United Arab Emirates who funded, to take, oh, just a random example, the 9-11 hijackers.

BTW, it's those very same banks behind the recent buyout of a significant number of American port facilities on the East Coast.

Huh? Whazzat?

Didn't you see this in the SCLM/MSM? There's a connection between those 9-11 hijackers and the shady Arabs who are buying up American shipping ports, including such major ports as Miami, New York and Baltimore?

Exactly what the fuck is going on here? Don't bother trying to ask the BFEE -- they're so far in the Arab bed that you can't even see their toes jammed into those nifty gold-brocade Ali Baba palace slippers.

Sold out for a mess of pottage, that's what we were. I hope that fucking pottage was really fucking worth it.

At Least He Didn't Call Him a "Darkie"...

It just never quits. I heard on the Stephanie Miller show this morning that Rush Oxy-from-Miami Limbaugh whined on his nationally-syndicated-with-a-steadily-shrinking-audience radio show the other day that the New York Times (that grey bastion of the "Liberal Media") in its coverage the whole Paul Hackett debacle ignored the fact that Sherrod Brown was Black.

Not that I can see what it really has to do with anything anyway, but that aside, as you can see for yourself from the photo below, Sherrod Brown is not black.

Rusty, maybe if you actually paid attention at Bettie Furd, you would have learned that after you complete rehab, you're not supposed to continue using drugs. Maybe if that had happened, you would have taken just that little bit of extra time to do -- novel concept -- some fact checking. It would take you about six fucking seconds to do a Google Image Search for Congressman Brown and see for yourself.

But as always with our favorite fatboy dopefiend, old Rusty-Wingnut Bigmouth, getting those inconvenient little facts right doesn't really matter as long as he can sling out the red meat for his pathetic knuckledragging mega-ditto-assed fans.

Jesus, when are people going get wise to these dangerously bloviating and disingenuously prevaricating airwave assholes from the far right?

Friday Cat Blogging

Quack-Quack Scalia a No-Show?

In 2004, Justice Antonin "Quack-Quack" Scalia went on a controversial duck hunting trip with Dickless Cheney, then refused to recuse himself from that infamous energy panel case involving Cheney.

Those of us who still believed in our constitutional republic were up in arms over the patent ethical violations and the obvious conflict of interest, but to no avail.

Well, now I'm not so sure. Now I think we'd like to see Scalia go on a hunting trip with Crashcart -- and take Scooter Libby along as the faithful native gun-bearer. Get Uncle Dickie torqued up on that series of potent pharmaceutical cocktails he takes daily for his multiple health problems, wash 'em down with a six-pack of high-test beers and see what happens.

Word has it, though, that Scalia will recuse himself from this hunting trip, citing a potential conflict of interest.

He wants to keep his face.

So... Where Was Lynne?

Okay, I'll admit that I am behind the curve on this one. Maybe it comes from being in my dotage, maybe it comes from lacking a firm grasp of the obvious, but here's a twist I didn't think of.

Where was Lynne Cheney on that fateful day when Dick-Whittington-and-His-Cat got that facefull of birdshot from VP Crashcart? What was that nasty little lesbian-porno novelist slash uptight Republican bitch up to?

Could it be that Whittington, a 78-year-old Hugh-Hefner-wannabe, was playing a little game of hide-the-pickle with Lynne, and The Dick found out about it and fired a warning shot across Harry's brows?

Okay, so Lynne's not exactly my cup of tea, but to each his own. Besides, when you're 78, I would imagine that the pickings are pretty slim. Lynne Cheney vs. Mary Hand and her five daughters? Tough choice. Right up to the time the birdshot enters your skin. At least Mary Hand doesn't have a jealous husband who can't get it up himself but still doesn't want her to have any fun.

Liberal Media My Ass

Those of us out here on the left edge of the blogosphere know that there is no such thing as the "Liberal Media". We've known it for years, forever it seems like.

But the fact that it doesn't exist -- like that invisible Soviet sub -- doesn't stop the wingnuttery morons on the right from flailing away at it continually.

Okay, so Peter Daou over at The Daou Report has issued a great challenge to all of those rightwing assholes who claim -- without bothering to have the actual proof -- that the SCLM hates Bush, hates Republicans, hates American, etc. etc. ad infinitum ad nauseum.

The challenge is a simple one: If you blame the media for the Cheney mess, prove it! Read Peter's challenge and laugh to yourself over the fact that not one single crypto-fascist neocon wingnut blogger can meet it.

Cheers to Peter Daou!

Above the Law? There Is No Law West of the Cheney

Even in Texas, hard as it is to believe, they have protocols for investigating shootings of human beings, accidental or otherwise. These shootings are investigated by local law enforcement authorities. It's the law.

Except where the perpetrator (aka "the perp") happens to be not only VP of the whole Noo-nited Staytzuh but also continuing political-backdoor double-dipping illegal-payola-sucking double-super-secret still-in-reality-if-not-in-name CEO of Halliburton, one Dick Cheney by name. Who is so far above the laws that we at the riff-raff level have to obey that he couldn't even be bothered to spend the lousy seven bucks for the required license to slaughter quail in a road-hunt. It's not like the contemptuous asshole couldn't afford it, you know. It just shows the arrogant disdain that these people hold for those of us down here at the bottom of things, who feel like we should obey the law, not flout it.

The headline should read "Chickenhawk hunts quail, bags turkey" (props to Frank Roberts, posting over on The Guardian, for this one).

Okay, though, jokes aside, there are questions upon questions inside of questions still unresolved in this whole sorry mess, and we won't get the answers. Not at all. Dickless "The Perp" Crashcart waited 14 hours to report the "crime" (had to do a little sobering up there, Dickie?) and then slunk out of town under cover of darkness without even giving so much as a canned statement to the local authorities. And when those authorities went out to this ironically-named "sports shooting" ranch, they were turned away.

Turned away? They have the responsiblity to investigate a shooting and they were turned away? What's up with that?

So it comes down to Harry Whittington being the key to this whole thing. What did Harry Whittington know, and when did he stop knowing it? Well, we won't find that out, either. He stopped knowing it the second those red-hot pellets entered his body, and he continued to stop knowing it in the hospital when he had that suspicious "heart attack".

Jesus, I'll need to make myself a tin-foil hat if I keep this up.

Welcome to Argentina del Norte: May I See Your Papers

Maureen Farrell has an excellent piece called Detention Camp Jitters over on Buzzflash that is a must read.

Notorious Halliburton subsidiary and Vietnam War profiteer Kellogg, Brown & Root has an extremely lucrative contract with Homeland Security to build "temporary detention facilities" in case of an "immigration emergency".

WTF? Is anybody out there listening to this shit? These are concentration camps, and it's not a new idea for Americans. Just in my lifetime, to pick three prominent examples, we shipped away Japanese-American citizens in WWII, we passed the 1950 McCarren Act which authorized the government to lock up "Communists" in camps, and we saw Nixon stooge and crypto-Nazi Tom Houston come up with the so-called Houston Plan which called for, in part, the abrogation of civil liberties and the rounding up of political dissidents and other un-American subhuman types, to detain them in sports stadiums.

Got that? Stadiums. Like in junta-ruled Argentina (and in Pinochet's post-Allende Chile; see for example the excellent Costa-Gavras film Missing -- based on a true story -- about a young American expatriate "disappeared" by the junta), we evidently expect so many detainees that we would have to commandeer whole sports stadiums.

Subsequent secret detention plans include Rex-84 and Nighttrain-84, ostensibly military preparedness/border control drills, the 1987 Iran-Contra Hearings exposé of Oliver North's preparations for "civilian inmate labor camps", and the new so-called Model State Emergency Health Powers Act, one provision of which includes herding people into ... sports stadiums. (Hmmm... I think I'm seeing a pattern here.)

Finally the capper came with John "Christ is in My Pocket and God is in My Ass" Ashcroft's plans to detain American citizens without benefit of charges, trials or conviction -- which led to the prominent cases of José Padilla and Yaser Esam Hamdi. This Ashcroft wet dream isn't over yet, and the smart money is on the Republican-packed Baby-Doc-apologist lock-step-fascist Supreme Court to ultimately rule in favor of the government.

"The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgment of his peers, is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist."

-- Winston Churchill, November 21, 1943.

Maybe we all ought to have our passports ready. Maybe try to get a second passport if we can.

If it isn't already too late...

How About a Little "Hunting Trip" for Schumer and Reid?

Maybe nominally-Democratic Senators Charles Schumer (D-Arrogant Prick) and Harry Reid (D-Apologist Weakling) ought to go hunting with Dick Cheney. It looks like the two of them could use the kind of warning shot that VP Dickhead Crashcart seems to be expert in delivering.

In my innocence and political naïvité, I thought that the primary system was how we democratically choose our candidates for the general election. Turns out I was wrong. Way wrong.

After first encouraging Iraq War veteran Paul Hackett -- whose political star rose rapidly after his surprisingly strong showing in last year's special congressional election battle against big mouthed anti-military fashion-nightmare Jean Schmidt (R-Screaming Bitch) -- to run for the Senate in Ohio, Schumer and Reid, bigwig Demos, organizational morons and professional nitwits, went behind his back to tell his supporters to stop donating to his campaign, and then pressured him to drop out of the race. Seems that they have aligned themselves -- and consequently the <sarcasm>full might and majesty</sarcasm> of the Democratic Party -- with Hackett's opponent, Sherrod Brown (D-Party Hack), so they can't have someone as popular (and populist) as Paul Hackett hanging around and cluttering up the confusion.

"Electibility" is ostensibly the reason for this shady underhanded backstabbing manipulation. Hackett is somehow "less electible" than Brown? Says who? Hackett was a new face and a new voice in politics and he created tremendous buzz nationwide last year, getting campaign donations from people in every state and going from total obscurity to 90 MPH in seconds. Hell, I even sent him money for his campaign, marking the very first time (but, as it turns out, not the last) in 40 years of political activity that I have donated cash to an out-of-state candidate. While it's true that Brown at this point has raised a lot of cash (ten times Hackett's, at last count), chances are that it's all from the Democratic bigwig financial base, not from the grassroots who by rights ought to be driving the party.

Sherrod Brown is, I'm sure, a nice guy and a good Democrat, but he is not going to get the national buzz -- and national support -- that Paul Hackett could get. I think the real reason for this sorry debacle is that Hackett is his own man and is not afraid to speak his mind; he owes nothing to the DLCC or the party hierarchy and consequently he would be essentially uncontrollable once he got to the Senate.

Moreover, what message does this send to all of the other veterans who are running for congress? Listen to Mike Lyon, executive director for the Band of Brothers, a group dedicated to electing veterans to national office: "Alienating Hackett is not just a bad idea for the party, but it also sends a chill through the rest of the 56 or so veterans that we've worked to run for Congress. Now is a time for Democrats to be courting, not blocking, veterans who want to run." Indeed.

While I've said for a long time that the Dems ought to start acting more like the Repugs, this is not what I had in mind.

I predict that this politically stupid and judgmentally inept incident will ultimately cause such turmoil among the Dems in Ohio that they will end up losing that Senate race. And that's yet another election that the Dems can't afford to lose but will anyway.

And it was all so unnecessary. It's like the Dems don't want to win. The DLCC/DSCC will never get one more fucking penny from me until they start acting like they really want to win elections, and stop this totally unacceptable anti-democratic candidate-screwing veteran-backstabbing bullshit. From this day forward all of my campaign donation money is going to individual candidates, ones that I think I can trust to do the right thing.

Cancel that hunting trip. Schumer and Reid don't need Cheney -- they're doing a great job on their own.

I wonder if you need a license to shoot yourself in the face.

Climate of Fear Part 666

Thom Hartmann, nationally-syndicated Air America radio show host, author of several books, and all around smart guy, puts some historical smackdown on Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz over at Common Dreams.

Read it and see how these three -- especially Rummy and Dickhead -- are the living embodiment of the Military Industrial complex that Dwight Eisenhower warned us against so many years ago.

Way back in the Ford Misadministration they concocted a loose-screw theory of an invisible Soviet submarine that we couldn't pick up on sonar -- but which nevertheless could sneak up practically inside New York harbor before launching its deadly cargo.

Never mind the fact that we had a Detente treaty with the Soviets (which was signed, sealed and delivered by their old boss, Richard Nixon). Never mind the fact that later it was discovered that the Soviet Empire was collapsing from within, and they wouldn't have had the resources to develop this invisible submarine even if one were within the realm of possibility. Never mind the fact that even at the time, there was absolutely no proof that the sub existed. In one of those Orwellian exercises in logic that this gang is so famous for, they held that the very fact that no proof existed was proof that the submarine existed!

Read Thom's analysis -- I highly recommend it for a brief look at the history behind where we are now. Still in a climate of fear, still being "held hostile" by this gang of opportunistic rightwing thugs, still unable to get rid of them once and for all.

Calling the NRA

Now don't you think that after all the millions and millions of dollars the NRA has poured into the Republican Party, someone could have taken just a little time to give VP Crashcart Cheney one of their famous firearm safety classes?

Just asking.

Weekly "Bush Twins in Uniform" Watch

It has now been 629 days since Jenna and Not-Jenna Bush, the slacker offspring of Preznit Numnutz, graduated from college and they are still not in the uniform of the US armed services.

Why? Because they have other priorities. They are too busy partying down in Georgetown to show their support for the war by enlisting their chickenhawk-child selves into the military service, that's why.

Why can't they be like their royal counterparts in the UK? The Royal Family, unlike the Bush Crime Family, has a centuries-long tradition of honorable military service. Prince Andrew was a combat helicopter pilot in La Guerre de las Malvinas (aka the Falklands War), Prince William, direct heir to the throne, has entered Sandhurst (Britain's West Point), and little brother Prince Harry graduates Sandhurst in April and could be sent to Iraq as a cavalry lieutenant.

How's that shit, Jenna and Not-Jenna? That make you a proud father, Baby Doc?

The rest you, those who think the proud military tradition of this nation needs to be upheld by those most likely to profit from it, be sure to sign the Buzzflash petition and demand that the Bush offspring enlist, or else bring the troops home. If it's not a cause noble enough for any of the children of the Bush Dynasty to join, then it's not noble enough for our sons and daughters to die for.

And check out The Yellow Elephant blog, which asks the question "It's their war; why aren't they fighting it?"

Return of an Endangered Species: The Liberal Republican!

Those of us who are old enough to remember the 1972 presidential election may recall Republican maverick California congressman Pete McCloskey and his quixotic run against Nixon in the presidential primaries. Most of us on the left were so involved in the McGovern campaign that we didn't really pay attention to the Republican side; to many people McCloskey is just the answer to a trivia question, a historical footnote to a particularly bad year.

McCloskey, a highly-decorated Marine combat vet from the Korean War, is from the old school of Republican politics, the party of Mark Hatfield, Tom McCall, Charles Percy and John Lindsay. Exactly the kind of moderate, fiscally-conservative and socially-liberal politicians who would be unwelcome in today's Republican Party.

So what's Pete up to these days? Well, even though he's 78 and has been retired to his organic orange groves for many years, he still has that maverick spirit. He's running for congress again, this time against corrupt wingnut political hack Richard Pombo in California's 11th District.

McCloskey, one of the authors of the Endangered Species Act (imagine one of today's Republicans doing that!), may be one himself, but that's not stopping him from going after Pombo, who as Chairman of the House Resources Committee, is dedicated to eviscerating the Act.

So here's to Pete McCloskey. I hope he makes it. I've said many times that I would never support a Republican, but I had kind of forgotten about people like Pete and that old-line liberal wing of the party. Who knows, stranger things have happened--maybe this will kick-start that nearly-extinct liberal wing enough to get it off of life supports and into ass-kicking form.

If, as I predict, the Religio-Fascist Hezbollah wing of the Republican Party splits off, it will create a power vacuum that the long-dormant liberal wing of the party can exploit.

And if you're feeling in a generous mood -- or you've prayed to the patron saint of quixotic quests before -- why don't you drop by McCloskey for Congress and lay a few dead presidents on Pete, for old time's sake and in memory of all those liberal Republicans who are so sorely missed.

Just When You Think You've Heard it All

Yeah, never think that. That's the sure way to bring some gutshot shocker to your attention. Sure enough, this just in from Main and Central, in turn quoting noted patriot and prince of darkness Robert "Traitor" Novak:

The Bush administration is going directly to the public with its war message. Raul Damas, associate director of political affairs at the White House, has been on the phone directly to Republican county chairmen to arrange local speeches by active duty military personnel to talk about their experiences in Iraq.

Never mind the fact that this flies directly in the face of a Pentagon directive, issued by Paul "Combsucker" Wolfowitz himself, that says a member of the military service MAY NOT "use his or her official authority or influence for interfering with an election; affecting the course or outcome of an election; soliciting votes for a particular candidate or issue; or requiring or soliciting political contributions from others."

Ah, the but the course of Empire never runs smoothly, and the HMFICs in the Baby Doc Maladminstration never miss an opportunity to pound the propaganda, do they?

The Whore Press Just Rolls Over and Takes it

Baby Doc was about to speak to some of his loyal followers in the People's Chamber of Deputies House of Representatives at their Maryland retreat. So of course the press was kicked out.

"I support the free press, let's just get them out of the room," The Great Misleader said after just a few minutes. So the whores in the media scoop up their steno pads and meekly file out of the room. I guess it goes without saying that nobody asked "the question", of course, so nobody picked up the thousand bucks.

Turns out the irony was delicious, however. Once the slithering line of media whores left the room, Baby Doc didn't notice that a microphone was on. He got a little of his own eavesdropping medicine.

"I expect this conversation we're about to have to stay in the room. I know that's impossible in Washington," The Chimperor said with a smirk on his face.

Yeah, I guess it was impossible. It's just too bad only a few minutes went by before someone "discovered" the open mike. (What's more likely one of the media whores came back and told him about it. Things have changed since I was an aspiring newspaper hack lo these many years ago. We would never have tipped off the subject of our investigation if he'd accidentally left an open mike in a secret session. But then this current group seems to be congenitally incapable of comprehending even the general idea of investigative journalism.)

Republicans to Veterans: Fuck You #1288

Pretty soon we're going to need a Cray Supercomputer to tally up all of the ways the Senate Repugs continue to screw veterans over.

This time it involves two Senate bills, both of which would roll back just a tiny amount of the scheduled tax breaks for the rich plutocrats -- the scheduled tax breaks that are coming next year; the fat-cat ratfuck greedy-assed motherfuckers wouldn't lose even a fucking nickel out of those already stuffed-to-overflowing silk-lined pockets. The money saved by removing these recklessly unwarranted tax breaks would be earmarked to take care of the multiple needs -- mainly health care -- of veterans coming back from Iraq, and to provide much-needed equipment for the troops still on the ground in the Middle East.

Got that? Health care and military equipment. It's not like the money's going to be wasted in a profligate spending spree, squandering it foolishly on feeding the hungry, clothing the needy, housing the homeless or educating the children.

By an almost strictly party-line vote both bills were defeated. God forbid the Repugnican bastards should actually have to do anything to support our troops in the field and our veterans returning with real and serious problems. Support our troops? Yeah, uh-huh.

And once again the moon-pie glassy-eyed Baby-Doc-sucking religio-fascist zombie cultists like Chickenshit Charlie will blindly follow their Misleader and spit in the faces of our veterans and our soldiers.

Jesus, it is no fucking wonder that military recruiting is way down, and reenlistments are plummeting. The more this kind of shit keeps seeping out of the Repug Congress and the Bush Crime Family White House, the less attractive the military will seem, even for those who have few other options in this below-minimum-wage Walmart economy.

BTW, it is also no wonder nearly all of the veterans who are running for Congress this year are running as Democrats.

See Bob Geiger's Blog for more details -- and his inimitably biting commentary -- on this stinking pile of Repugnican pig shit.

The Offending Cartoons -- A Smoke Screen

Brian over at One Veteran's Voice has copies of the cartoons, so I've finally seen them. To my jaded and irreligious Western eyes, they are at worst mildly offensive and some are actually funny.

The biggest offender from what I can tell from all the uproar, the one that allegedly shows The Prophet Mohammed with a bomb in his turban ... well, when you have a religion that forbids portraits of the man through fear of idolatry, how does anyone know what he looks like anyway?

But my point is that these cartoons are not new. They've been out there in the world at large for five months. So why now, of all times, have they suddenlybecome this huge international issue, prompting rioting in the streets, the storming of embassies and the torching of sovereign flags?

Well, could it just possibly be that the BFEE, using its on-the-ground and in-your-pocket partners in the Arab Street (i.e, Saudi Arabia), has decided to stir up Islamic unrest world wide, payback some old "debts" to Denmark and Norway (god knows what they are), and get the media's focus off that whole committing crimes and violating the Constitution thing? Naaa, ya think?

You have to admit, though, that those smoldering Danish and Norwegian flags have created a very handy smoke screen for the BFEE to hide behind, while at the same time they give the media a rare gift, an actual burning FIRE to cover. Remember the old newsroom saw, "It it bleeds, it leads". A riotous anarchic mob torching the flag of a soverign nation and burning its embassy to the ground is the next best thing to the splatter of actual blood.

It makes me wonder what else the bastards have up their sleeves. The closer we get to the election, the more frightened they will try to make us become. They have to. It's the only thing they've got going for themselves.

Friday Cat Blogging

Bait and Switch: It Still Works

Jesus Mary and Joseph, the lying fuckers are still getting away with it. No sooner did the heat got turned up on this whole unfortunately misinterpreted domestic "spying" and constitutional rights brouhaha/tempest-in-a-teapot/ much-ado-about-nothing/ the-Constitution-is-just-a-goddam-piece-o-paper, but Baby Doc and little Scotty McWeewee jumped up from their pillow-fort hidey-holes yelling "Look over there! A terrorist! We stopped him! The program works!"

Now the the Whore Press is all a-flutter and virtually wetting its collective pants over this new revelation (which may or may not be -- and probably isn't -- based somewhere in reality), and those disingenuous motherfuckers in the BFEE have successfully pulled yet another smoke-and-mirrors stunt.

God damn it, you assholes in the press, look back over here: IT'S THE CRIME, STUPID!!!!!

It doesn't matter if this new and highly suspect story is even true, if it was even a success. It doesn't fucking matter!!!
What the Bush Maladministration did was against the law!!!! That's the story, and you goddamn whores in the media need to stop running after bright shiny things and stay focused.

Yeah, like that's gonna happen anytime soon. Fuck it -- forget I said anything.

A Thousand Bucks? Get Real

My well-meaning fellow liberals over at Democrats.com are ponying up a reward of $1000 for any reporter who will ask The Chimperor this simple question:

"How can you claim you were trying to avoid war through the UN, when you told Prime Minister Blair on Jan. 31, 2003, that if you failed to get a resolution from the UN authorizing war, 'military action would follow anyway'?"

A thousand bucks? White House reporters make more than that just taking a crap. Sorry, Dems, but it is gonna take a lot more than that to get one of the pet dogs from the press pool to ask any hard questions of that lying, smirking Texas blowhard.

Try a million bucks. Cash on the barrelhead. Then you might get some takers. The thing is, the reporter who starts asking the hard questions -- and god forbid expecting answers -- will get unceremoniously shoved to the back of the bus, and his/her career will go into permanent eclipse. Look at what happened to Helen Thomas. You've got to make it worthwhile to the poor sap, and a lousy grand isn't doing it.

Return of the Alien and Sedition Acts? Ask Laura Berg

Laura Berg? She's a poison-pen nurse with the VA down in Albuquerque, New Mexico. We'll get back to her a little later.

So, it turns out in an eerie coincidence, the first father-son team to inhabit the office of the presidency also had some of their own difficulties with those annoyingly irksome American freedoms, especially that nasty one about Freedom of Speech.

A little historical background: On July 4, 1798 (a date I am sure which was not merely coincidental), John Adams set his quill to a set of four laws which became known collectively as the Alien and Sedition Acts.

These laws were:
1. The Alien Enemies Act authorized the president to imprison (or deport) any alien from an enemy nation (one the United States was fighting).
2. The Alien Friends Act authorized the president to deport any alien considered dangerous, in both war and peacetime.
3. The Naturalization Act extended the duration of residence required for aliens to become citizens, nearly tripling it from five years to 14.
4. The Sedition Act made it a crime to publish "false, scandalous, and malicious writing" against the government or its officials.

Well. Some of that certainly sounds oddly familiar, doesn't it?

The Acts were hardly used during their liftetime -- they expired in 1800 -- and that's really unfortunate since the Supreme Court never got a chance to rule on them. SCOTUS decisions over the years which mention the Acts assume their unconstitutionality, but that's no guarantee that those "activist-judges" decisions will remain stare decisis. Remember, kids, like we keep getting beaten into our thick skulls, it's a Post-Nine-Eleven World.

Okay, fast-forward to today's case in point: Laura Berg, an employee of the US Veterans Administration -- a nurse, in fact -- in New Mexico, who had the fucking nerve, the pure unmitigated gall, to write a letter to the editor of a small weekly newspaper, a letter that was critical of the Bush Maladminstration. Excerpt:

We need to wake up and get real here, and act forcefully to remove a government administration playing games of smoke and mirrors and vicious deceit. Otherwise, many more of us will be facing living hell in these times.

Yeah, I know, what a subversive. But it gets worse.

Storm troopers from the VA Gestapo (whatever they call their Internal Affairs Division over there) showed up at her desk, impounded her computer and accused her of "sedition". Jesus, sedition? Who even talks like that any more? And maybe somebody ought to set up a fund to buy a goddamn dictionary for these assholes, so they can see the fucking difference between "forcefully" and "forcibly".

Anyway, after an "investigation" they decided that she hadn't used her work computer in this seditiously nefarious letter-writing conspiracy. Never mind that there was no indicatory evidence, no probable cause, not even a whisper of an innuendo of a hint that she had used her work computer to write that scurrilous and un-American attack letter. And all that stupid and useless "due process" crap? Forget about it -- that's just crazy talk, pre-9/11 thinking.

What we have here is a particularly dirty campaign of intimidation, harrassment and suppression of free speech. Bottom line, that's exactly what this amounts to. And I don't give a rat's ass if the VA Gestapo was acting on direct orders from Big Dick Crashcart, Karl You-Have-Relatives-in-the-Old-Country Rove, even His Royal Highass himself, or if they just took it on themselves -- it really doesn't matter, because the BFEE has done and continues to do everthing it possibly can to create an artificial climate of fear in this country -- so even if they didn't actually order this hit, they are responsible for creating the bureaucratic hot-house atmosphere where this kind of thinking grows, thrives and prevails.

The more cases like Laura Berg's we hear about, the less likely people are to speak out. That's the intent, anyway. Some of us are too stupid, too reckless, or too American to take the hints and STFU.

So let's go back to the Alien and Sedition Acts. That last one, Number 4, it's the Big Kahuna, and that's exactly the one that we have to worry about the most. Every one of us out here in Left Blogistan is potentially at risk of violating that one. We're fortunate that the act expired with the end of Adams' term -- otherwise the BFEE would not be above dusting it off, dressing it up and trotting it out, to apply it wholesale to those of us who are acting forcefully to remove an administration filled with vicious deceit.

BTW, I am happy to report that the ACLU (of which I am proud to be a card-carrying member) has taken up Berg's case and is demanding an apology from the-appropriately-named Mel Hooker, the VA human resources chief. We'll have to see how this one works out.

And in the meantime, let's keep a weather eye out for the resurrection of the Alien and Sedition Acts. It'll come as part of the Orwellian-named Patriot Act -- watch for it.

James Webb Running as a Democrat? Yikes, it IS a Landslide

James Webb, former Secretary of the Navy under Ronald Reagan, Vietnam veteran and novelist, and former lifelong Republican, has announced he will seek the nomination of the Democratic party in Virginia to run against George Allen for the US Senate.

He'll have to get through the primary first, though. He's up against a former lobbyist named Harris Miller, who says "I can make a difference by focusing on the future instead of getting caught up in cheap partisan politics". Harris needs to get a grip. Democrats aren't going to win an election to dogcatcher with that kind of attitude; Repugs need a swift kick to the nuts, and Miller won't be the one to give it them if he persists in that kind of namby-pamby milktoast pablum-puking crap. Miller's mouthpiece, Brian Cook, also talked about "how Washington is broken", trying to make the case for "why Harris Miller is the best person to fix it" -- that's the kind of humor we usually see on the Repug side: Miller is a fucking lobbyist, and he's going to be the one fix it?

I say welcome, James Webb, yet another veteran who is pissed off this administration.

Webb's conversion doesn't really come as a suprise to me. Just a few weeks ago I highlighted Webb's scathing NY Times Op-Ed piece attack on the Baby Doc Maladministration's criminal mistreatment of both its military personnel and its veterans.

Here's hoping that this is a trend, that more responsible Republicans will realize what the neocons in this administration have done to their party and to their country.

And Yet Another One! Is This a Landslide?

As recently as November, the über-conservative Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, owned by the notoriously right-wing multi-millionaire Richard Mellon Scaife (the so-called "funding father of the right"), said Jack Murtha was wrong, we had to "stay the course", etc., in Iraq.

Now, in a 180-degree shift, the paper's editorial of Jan 17 says "The War in Iraq: Time to Move On".

Time to move on. This is another conservative source that's turned on Baby Doc. Like a shark smelling blood in the water, Scaife is operating from anything but altruistic instincts, but he can see -- as can everyone with half a brain -- that the Bush Maladministration is in deep trouble, and if Republicans don't do everything they can to try to distance themselves from the imploding neocons, it will spell doom at the polls.

Well, that's too fucking bad. Our response ought to be -- will be -- to defeat their sorry asses in November, put some Democrats with balls (like the Band of Brothers) into Congress, and get rid of the fascist bastards who have tried to hijack our country.

Another True Conservative Against Bush

True conservatives are joining the side of light. Let's just hope that it's not too late.

Newest to jump the neocon ship of fools is Paul Craig Roberts, who was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration, Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page, and Contributing Editor of National Review. In other words, his credentials as a bona fide conservative are above reproach.

Which makes it all the more telling that he is willing to come out with such a forceful piece on the Bush Maladminstration: He has a lengthy think-piece, Who Will Save America? My Epiphany, that is a must-read. It's a little long -- and a bit too self-centered (like I should talk...) -- but what he has to say will send chills through you. Excerpts:

When I saw that the neoconservative response to 9/11 was to turn a war against stateless terrorism into military attacks on Muslim states, I realized that the Bush administration was committing a strategic blunder with open-ended disastrous consequences for the US that, in the end, would destroy Bush, the Republican Party, and the conservative movement.

* * * * *

We have reached a point where the Bush administration is determined to totally eclipse the people. Bewitched by neoconservatives and lustful for power, the Bush administration and the Republican Party are aligning themselves firmly against the American people. Their first victims, of course, were the true conservatives. Having eliminated internal opposition, the Bush administration is now using blackmail obtained through illegal spying on American citizens to silence the media and the opposition party.

* * * * *

Before flinching at my assertion of blackmail, ask yourself why President Bush refuses to obey the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The purpose of the FISA court is to ensure that administrations do not spy for partisan political reasons. The warrant requirement is to ensure that a panel of independent federal judges hears a legitimate reason for the spying, thus protecting a president from the temptation to abuse the powers of government. The only reason for the Bush administration to evade the court is that the Bush administration had no legitimate reasons for its spying. This should be obvious even to a naif.

* * * * *

The United States is undergoing a coup against the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, civil liberties, and democracy itself. The "liberal press" has been co-opted. As everyone must know by now, the New York Times has totally failed its First Amendment obligations, allowing Judith Miller to make war propaganda for the Bush administration, suppressing for an entire year the news that the Bush administration was illegally spying on American citizens, and denying coverage to Al Gore's speech that challenged the criminal deeds of the Bush administration.

* * * * *

The TV networks mimic Fox News' faux patriotism. Anyone who depends on print, TV, or right-wing talk radio media is totally misinformed. The Bush administration has achieved a de facto Ministry of Propaganda.

There's much more in this lengthy article. Don't miss it -- it's on the Counterpunch website .

And you out there, all of you who are continuing, in the face of all logic and reason, to support this Maladministration, doesn't it give you pause to wonder... If people like Roberts are against Bush, why do you still continue to support him?
Have you ever really thought about why you support Bush?
Is Roberts just plain wrong? If so, where and how? And what if Roberts is right?
What will you do when it's too late and we've slid over into a fascist police state that will be next to impossible to dig ourselves out of?

Damn, I forgot. My bad. Those are some more of those pesky questions that your average Bush Crime Family supporter in the Moron-American voting bloc (like our old blog-buddy Chickenshit Charlie) just can't fathom. Can't even conceive of. Certainly can't answer.

Baby Doc -- A Positive Example for Race Relations!

(Thanks to Bartcop for letting me steal the image)

And who said that Baby Doc wasn't doing anything to help race relations? Sometimes just setting an example is sufficient.

Why we still "Heart" Charlie Rangel.

Torquemada G. -- The Portrait

This just in, a portrait recently discovered in the archives of the Inquisition:

(Props to regular reader and a fellow Veterans for Peace member
BOHICA from Portland, OR, who created this portrait.

Kinda scary, isn't it? Fine product of a Catholic school education, that one. Some o' that good ole "faith based education" at work.

Yow!

Torquemada G. -- No Perjury Here

Torquemada G -- that'll be Alberto "Top Cop" Gonzales' rapper name when he's performing in Cell Block D at Lompoc.

Except that it won't, because those News McNuggets we've been seeing all over the television of Torquemada chatting away with members of the Senate, no matter how many times he lies, dissembles, dissumulates, covers up or conceals the truth, etc etc, whatever you want to call it, he will not be charged with perjury.

Perjury requires someone to take a oath, to be sworn in, to affirm, etc., that what he/she is saying is the truth.

Torquemada, in what must be a Bush Crime Family prerequisite for talking to Congress, refused to be sworn in. So that makes me wonder why the fuck not?

The answer ought to be obvious, just as it was when Baby Doc and his Uncle Dick had that tandem meat-puppet performance before the 9-11 Commission. He wouldn't show up with out The Dick, and neither would talk if they'd been sworn in. Just as it was when Kindasleezy testified before chatted with the 9-11 Commission. Just as it was when the oil barons gave their dog-and-pony show before that Senate committee, the one where my senator Maria Cantwell (in a rarely-seen fine moment) tried to demand from committee chairman Ted Stevens (R-Asshole) that the oily bastards be sworn before testifying, and for her trouble was slapped down by Stevens.

So what is the fucking point, then, of going through this charade of having these assholes come before Congress? They don't have to tell the truth, and if they are not sworn in, they have no repercussions from lying their fucking heads off.

I guess these are like the old Soviet "Show Trials" back in the 1930s -- facts don't matter, it's all for show. Biggest difference is that all those guys were "guilty" before the trials started. Here they're all truly guilty, but we will never get them to a trial.

Weekly "Bush Twins in Uniform" Watch

It has now been 622 days since Jenna and Not-Jenna Bush, the slacker offspring of Preznit Numnutz, graduated from college and they are still not in the uniform of the US armed services.

Why? Because they have other priorities. They are too busy partying down in Georgetown to show their support for the war by enlisting their chickenhawk-child selves into the military service, that's why.

Why can't they be like their rough counterparts in the UK? The Royal Family, unlike the Bush family, has a centuries-long tradition of honorable military service. Prince Andrew was a combat helicopter pilot in the Malvinas (aka the Falklands War), Prince William, heir to the throne, has entered Sandhurst (Britain's West Point), and little brother Prince Harry graduates Sandhurst in April and could be sent to Iraq as a cavalry lieutenant.

How's that shit, Jenna and Not-Jenna? That make you a proud father, Baby Doc?

The rest you, those who think the proud military tradition of this nation needs to be upheld by those most likely to profit from it, be sure to sign the Buzzflash petition and demand that the Bush offspring enlist, or else bring the troops home. If it's not a cause noble enough for any of the children of the Bush Dynasty to join, then it's not noble enough for our sons and daughters to die for.

And check out The Yellow Elephant blog, which asks the question "It's their war; why aren't they fighting it?"

Going Dark Until After the Game

It being Super Bowl Sunday and my hometown team is there to kick some Steeler ass, I'm going dark until sometime Monday.

It's too bad, too, because the last day and half have produced some high-stinking stories -- like the Bush Crime Family floating the trial balloon that Baby Doc Corleone has the authority to kill people right here on US soil without arrest, trial and conviction.

Did you ever notice that they'll push out bad news, or shit like this, when a lot fewer people are paying attention? Not that I'm cynical or anything...

Another $120 Billion? Georgie, We Need to Talk About Your Allowance

It was inevitable that he would make demands for more. Like every other whiny eight-year-old entitlement-riding tantrum-throwing spoiled brat spendthrift, Baby Doc is greedily demanding more and more cash for the toys he wants, but he isn't willing to scrape the sidewalk, wash the car, do the dishes or even clean up his own room.

When is somebody gonna tell the little fucker that enough is enough? Another $120 billion to prosecute the War on Terra^tm? Okay, even those among you who agree that this war is justified, is the right thing to do, is necessary to stop Iraqi international terrorist agression, blah blah blah, have got to be choking on this figure, since it now puts the cost of the war right at the half-trillion dollar level. Especially in light of the fact that the Little Dick-tater is still demanding that his tax cuts on the rich be made permanent. So just where the fuck does he think the money is going to come from?

Georgie, if you want to go to the movies, you need to come up with the cash yourself. Get a job, for chrissake. Mow some lawns, recycle bottles, shovel the shit out of the stable, sell greeting cards, do odd jobs, get a paper route, what-the-fuck-ever. You can't just keep borrowing money from us as an advance on your allowance. We just can't afford it. What if everyone borrowed money from us? Do you think money grows on trees? Do you think we're made of money? Do you want to drive us into the poorhouse? And so on, with all those other money clichés the rest of us grew up with.

Don't you think maybe if Papa Doc and the Wicked Witch of the Southwest had just taken the time to have this little chat with Baby Doc, he might have learned those lessons in fiscal responsibility that true conservatives learned a long time ago: You are not supposed to spend more money than you have, you are supposed to live within your means, and you need to put a little away for a rainy day. Jesus, Georgie, this isn't rocket surgery.

Does anybody remember the so-called Balanced Budget Amendment? As recently as 1997 it was an article of faith among Republicans. Now -- like the slavishly obedient 1930s Communist Party members who had to do so many mental contortions to follow the changing whims of Uncle Joe Stalin that the cognitive dissonance turned them into psychological, metaphysical and emotional pretzels -- they've had to completely turn themselves inside out, upside down and backside front, while still maintaining the mental fiction that they have always believed the way they do today.

Orwellian. That's the only word for it.

Veterans Unemployment Figures -- A National Disgrace

According to the US Labor Department, the unemployment rate for young veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan is 15%, which is more than triple the national average of 4.9%. Just since the invasion of Iraq, the rate rocketed up from an average of 11% for the same demographic. Compare this to the unemployment rate for non-veterans in the same age group, which has dropped from 10% to 8%.

Many of these unemployed veterans are National Guard or Reserve troops who were called to duty but found when they came home that their old jobs were no longer there for them.

Labor Dept spokesman (and apparent BFEE apologist) Charles Ciccolella claims that the problem is not new and that it might show that some of these vets might be waiting to enter school, or have "chosen not to find jobs".

Yeah, uh-huh. They are among the "voluntarily unemployed" and therefore beneath contempt to the ruling class. They think there's no earthly reason to be unemployed in this humming, strumming and cumming WalMart economy of ours. So I guess that these lazy slackers who have come home to suck on the public tit of unemployment insurance think that they are somehow "entitled" to something. Like their old jobs back...

Wait a second. Isn't there something called USERRA -- the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act? And isn't there also something called ESGR, the National Committee for Support of the Guard and Reserve?

So aren't returning veterans given some kind of guarantee or assurance they can return to the old jobs, the jobs they had when they were called up, when their units were activated and sent to the Middle East to protect our "freedoms" and bring "democracy" to the benighted peoples of the earth?

Well, yes and no. It seems that those "guarantees" have more holes than it takes to fill the Albert Hall . Big surprise that the employer class really doesn't have to do anything to give the returning veteran his old job back, if that job no longer exists due to such lame-ass excuses as a "good faith reorganization", blah blah blah.

Just another in a long line of sorry examples of the BFEE screwing over veterans.

I'm actually surprised that they aren't making those lazy slacker getovers in the Walter Reed trauma ward for amputees pay for their own wound dressings.

George Orwell -- Way Ahead of His Time

A couple of quotes from George Orwell's classic dystopian novel 1984 came to my attention recently, and I think they are worth repeating here:

There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted. You had to live -- did live, from habit that became instinct -- in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.

* * * * *

The two aims of the Party are to conquer the whole surface of the earth and to extinguish once and for all the possibility of independent thought. There are therefore two great problems which the party is concerned to solve. One is to discover, against his will, what another human being is thinking, and the other is how to kill several hundred million people in a few seconds without giving warning beforehand.

Orwell was prescient beyond belief -- it's difficult to grasp at this late date that he actually wrote 1984 way back in the late 1940s. There are some notable differences, of course, between then and now, biggest among them that the Party has pretty much got that whole "kill several hundred million" thing worked out, and with those nifty night vision devices the protective cover of darkness has been eliminated.

And one more thing Orwellian: Be sure to check out Principles of Newspeak for an instant primer into the deep-structure meaning behind just about every fucking word that comes out of the mouths of Big Brother Cheney, his meat puppet Baby Doc, inept prognisticator Kindasleezy and all of the other corrupt minions of the BFEE.

Friday Gay Cat Blogging

Ever since my blog-buddy Chickenshit Charlie, the incoherent, invective-spewing, thinking-impaired racist homophobe and oxymoronically self-described Republican veteran, accused my cats (or me, or all of us -- I'm still not sure) of being gay, I've started to look at these two in a different light.

Turns out, old Chickenshit Charlie may have been right: They are both females, and they sleep together.

Gay. Totally gay.

Case closed.

Another Smoking Gun

Baby Doc told Tony "The Poodle" Blair nearly two months before he invaded Iraq that the war was inevitable, and The Poodle agreed to back him, regardless of the legality of the war, whether or not there was a second UN resolution or even if UN inspectors found no evidence of a banned Iraqi weapons program.

Read the whole disgusting story and be prepared to be angered and appalled. Especially over the part where Baby Doc planned to paint US spy planes with UN colors, do a low flyover, and hope that Saddam would open fire on them, thereby creating an "international incident" and a pretext for war.

I had to get this piece of news from The Guardian, in the UK -- where they still have the luxury of an independent press corps.

What are the odds you'll see this story anywhere in the American Media-Whore press? About the same as monkeys flying out of your ass.

Little Sammy's First Day at School

Stripsearch Sammy managed to foist himself off as a truly "independent thinker" when his very first foray into the rarefied heights of Judimicial Judgin' resulted in him coming out in opposition to three other Repug lackeys (Scalia, Thomas and Roberts).

The case was an inconsequential stay of execution motion (inconsequential, that is, for everyone except the guy on death row). The three hang-em-high guys were, naturally, ready to fry the poor fucker, but Sammy came in with the majority and agreed to a temporary stay.

This is all bullshit, of course, designed by the evil and cynical manipulators in the BFEE to throw off all of us who were such sharp critics of Stripsearch Sammy. And it is apparently working, since just today I heard several of my acquaintances breathe these kind of collective sighs of relief and say shit like, "Maybe he's not so bad after all. Maybe we were wrong."

Bullshit bullshit bullshit.

This whole sordid thing was designed -- at the expense of a man about to be put to death -- to elicit exactly that kind of reaction. And even those on the upper edge of sanity in the Moron-American voting bloc can be easily swayed by something like this. They will lose focus. They are easily distracted. They are, in fact, morons.

So when the shit really hits the fan and the fascist court starts steadily eating away, bit by bite by chomp, our freedoms, our liberties, everything that we thought up until now were our constitutionally-guaranteed rights, no one will be paying any attention.

And that's what the evil bastards in the Bush Crime Family are counting on.

"Fair and Balanced" in the Tee Shirt Wars?

Looks like the Stasi agents Capitol cops are also moonlighting as fashion police.

As usual, the facts show that it's not what we were told by the SCLM/MSM. As usual, as they say, the devil is in the details. What we do know is that the Capitol police arrested Cindy Sheehan for wearing a tee shirt they didn't like, and removed her from the US Capitol building in handcuffs. Then, to give the appearance of being "fair and balanced", evidently feeling the need -- or obeying the orders -- to hassle someone from the other side, they go after Beverly Young, a Florida Republican congressman's wife who had the audacity to wear a "support our troops" tee shirt. But they asked her nicely to leave. No arrest, no handcuffs, nothing similar to the heavy-handed neofascist bullying tactics they used on Cindy Sheehan.

So what was Cindy's big crime? Wearing a goddamned tee shirt that had the total number of Americans slaughtered in Iraq and asks the non-rhetorical question "how many more?".

Yeah, that's obviously the fucking crime of the century. Cindy, how dare you attempt to use your clothing as a medium for exercising your free speech rights? How dare you?

And you there, Beverly Young. What the fuck were you thinking? I guess it doesn't matter that you, despite the fact that you are a Republican, have spent a good deal of your own personal time at Walter Reed and Bethesda, working with the severely disabled victims of Baby Doc's war.

Or does it? Maybe that is why you were asked to leave -- you have seen first hand the end product of the BFEE war machine, those deformed souls being spit out the other end of that infernal process.

Is this the Little Dick-tater's not-so-subtle way of telling you to keep your fucking mouth shut?

State of the Union? For Veterans, it's Fucked Up Part Two

I confess I did not watch the speech. I have personal reasons for not watching Baby Doc on television for even five seconds, let alone over an hour.

When I was a small child growing up in rural NE Oklahoma, someone who lived near us shot his television with a shotgun when Eisenhower gave a televised speech. (Oh, how Oklahoma has changed in the last fifty years...) I have a fairly new 61" HDTV projection television, and I really want to watch my Seahawks stomp some Steeler ass on Sunday, so it's best that I don't expose myself to temptation.

But I digress.

The number of times Baby Doc even mentioned veterans: 0

As in zero. As in none. As in zilch. As in the little fucker didn't mention veterans at fucking all during that sorry public display.

Moreover, the drill when everyone who is anyone is gathered together at one place in DC is to designate a cabinet official as the go-to guy in the extremely unlikely event that everyone gets snuffed by a terrorist attack, nuclear attack, anthrax bomb, etc etc etc. This is always some bottom-rung cabinet member who is out of favor with the HMFIC.

Guess who that was. Guess who was the only cabinet member was who wasn't even fucking there for the speech.

Give up? It was James Nicholson, the Secretary of Veterans Administration.

It just goes to show you how little regard this maladministration has for America's veterans.